


does he project, does he have ideas?

by mildlydiscouraging



Series: seven birds (tazwap version) [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, First Kiss, Getting Together, Jazz - Freeform, M/M, Musicians, Roleswap, That Good Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-18 09:04:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11871054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: If there's one thing Taako has learned during the past forty cycles, it's to stop expecting things. And yet somehow Kravitz still surprises him.





	does he project, does he have ideas?

Taako takes to the trumpet like a duck to water. The minute the conservatory's entire deal is explained, Taako is gone, bolting inside. He tries out half a dozen of the instruments on display (including many of the ones a flustered guard tries to tell him are off limits) and did fairly well at them all. The moment his lips touch the mouthpiece of the shiniest golden trumpet any of them have ever seen, though, it's obvious. Taako quickly outgrows the professor gladly volunteered by the conservatory (while also pissing off a few of his more uptight classmates) and escapes to the academy's bustling quads to "fully realize" his "true prowess and destiny" while conveniently also conning passing students out of their hard earned gold.

As the others branch out in their own creative endeavors, Taako finds himself not stuck with Kravitz so much as unconsciously drawn to him. Over the cycles Taako has grown to accept he can't keep everyone out, and Kravitz is among the few reasons he isn't too upset about it. Their relationship was... well, stuttering at first, where they got on like a house on fire one minute and were butting heads the very next, but over time it's changed to something more stable.

In the past year in particular they've reached a sort of synchronicity that Taako has never felt with anyone before but Lup. It's like some sort of external equilibrium where every time he feels himself about to slip too far off one edge, Kravitz is there to pull him just as hard in the opposite direction. When Taako is impatient, Kravitz is calm; when Taako annoys the shit out of some stranger in a marketplace, Kravitz is placating and charming enough to get them out of there; when the only thing Taako wants to do is stay in his room for weeks and not speak to anyone, Kravitz is there to drag him by the hand into whatever ridiculous scheme Lup and Julia have cooked up this time. The fact that Kravitz is simultaneously the most handsome and dorkiest person Taako has ever met while still enough of an asshole to like, doesn't hurt either.

So when they find themselves the only two IPRE members doing instrumental music (Kravitz sticking with what he knew in the form of the old upright piano he'd managed to get aboard the ship decades ago) it's only natural that they pair up. And when they end up spending almost every waking hour together, and creating their own little world of inside jokes and understandings, and excursions and studies and nights in, well, that seems only natural as well.

One evening in particular Taako and Kravitz manage to commandeer the common room and are flipping through Kravitz's records in search of some inspiration. Kravitz is trying to somewhat steer them back towards some of the more structured works, but Taako keeps interrupting him.

"None of these academy fools know anything about any of these guys, yeah?" Taako picks up one of the records spread out on the floor around him like a messy halo. "Why don't we just chuck one of these in the cave and be done with it?"

He mimes throwing the record like a discus and Kravitz grabs it out of his hands before he can accidentally actually throw it at the wall. "Somehow I doubt whatever it is that's in there is a fan of plagiarism," he says.

" _Plagiarism_ , yeah right, as if—It's re-attribution, honey, spreading the wealth around. I mean, fuck that proprietary shit."

When Taako pokes him in the side, Kravitz smiles and quirks an eyebrow. "Are you here to free the labored masses, Mr. Communism?"

"I mean, that _is_  what we do."

Taako's smirk wavers, though, and he drops his gaze from Kravitz's after a moment. Even as the music continues to play around them, the mood has changed, and the air is suddenly stiff and immovable, threatening to choke them out.

"It's kinda all we do anymore," Taako adds eventually.

Kravitz can't help it as he leans over and nudges his shoulder against Taako's own downtrodden one. When he looks up, Kravitz smiles again, now less of a smirk and more warm and (he hopes) comforting.

"Well," he says, "if we could only do one thing for decades, saving the world is a pretty good one to be stuck with."

Taako picks at one of the frayed cardboard cover corners. Some of the records are more obviously well-loved than others, but he's seen the way Kravitz treats them all, explaining every detail like he personally was sitting in the studios. Every time their "research sessions" fall into a rut, all Taako has to do is ask one leading question about any song at all and Kravitz takes off like a speeding train. A really passionate, well-informed, and sometimes ridiculous sounding speeding train.

"...Do the accent?"

Kravitz sighs, faux put upon, but there's a smiling edge as he says in his worst cockney accent, "Now wot on earth could'ya mean by that?"

Taako falls flat on the floor into a pile of notes and laughs until he "might throw up, dude, seriously, stop it," although his pleas are to no avail as Kravitz continues his shoddy impersonations until they've both forgotten what they were originally talking about.

There are times where the others barely see them for weeks, and even then it's rare to see them apart. Lunches find them sitting at the kitchen island, Taako drumming on the table and Kravitz questioning what he should write down exactly in the middle of bites of their sandwiches, and at dinners with the whole group they still mostly talk to each other. No one knows what they're on about half the time, and eventually they stop trying to figure out what a chromatic chord is or any of that, leaving them to what Lup insists on calling their "common musical nerdom" as much as Taako takes offense.

Eventually there are times when they're ostensibly working and end up drifting away from their music and just goofing off. Taako goes out to busk on the quad, Kravitz is there sitting under the nearest tree and scribbling frantically whenever he hears something particularly inspiring, but mostly napping in the sun. They're in the hills one weekend, telling everyone they're "chasing inspiration" while really throwing shreds of grass at each other and trying to fit two grown men in a hammock without tipping over. One evening they spend in the depth of the conservatory's expansive music collection, Kravitz taking notes and Taako trying to see how many times he can pretend to come up with pre-existing songs before he catches on, and reading to each other from random books off the shelf, learning about this new world and doing ridiculous voices for all the characters.

In between these days they practice constantly, although practice for them really means hours of one variation after another in the search for something just right. Every day they inch closer to that elusive perfection and Taako is going crazy trying to find it. Kravitz is equally frustrated, though he tries not to take it out on his instrument like Taako does.

(There may have been a particularly frustrating afternoon during which he tried to break the trumpet over his knee. They don't really like to talk about it, if by "they" you mean "Taako" and not "literally everyone else," as they regularly bring up subsequent oddly shaped bruises.)

Of course, writing the music is completely exhausting, and their moments of not just distraction but true rest are wholeheartedly welcome when they come. The afternoon they finally nail the opening, Taako bakes them an entire fucking cake, and they make such short work of it that they both know they'll regret it tomorrow. But the success, and the feeling, is worth it.

The night of the ceremony, Taako is pacing backstage, his hands in fists around his trumpet, his ears flat back against his head. On the other side of the curtain Lup is bowing exaggeratedly having just finished her presentation, a huge extravagant pyrotechnic display that wows everyone in a fifty mile radius. The flashes from the cave are nothing compared to it, but they come and go relatively quickly, and the whole crowd cheers as this complicated spell and technique and amazement are broadcast back into their minds.

Taako feels a burst of pride in his chest that is quickly smothered by nerves. Next to him Kravitz, all nice in his black-on-black velvet suit, is bouncing on his toes, valiantly trying to look like he's keeping it together.

"Are you alright?" Kravitz asks as Taako continues pacing, now at a higher speed.

"Krav, honey, come on. Me? Nervous? As if."

Of course, as always, his ears give him away and twitch with the lie, jangling one of his earrings in a flash. His dress (specially conjured last week by Davenport) glitters gently in the light making its way back to them, and the clack of his heels is inaudible under the crowd's calls for an encore. The next time he walks past, Kravitz grabs his elbow.

"I mean, I'm nervous too," he says. "If that's any comfort."

"Thanks, babe, real reassuring." Taako's tone is biting, but he doesn't try to walk away again. With Kravitz's hand warm on his elbow he's grounded, even as he feels the urge to run off and hide in the ship until it all starts resets and he can forget this ever happened.

"It's gone well for everyone else so far," Kravitz says. "We'll be fine, right?"

"Yeah, sure, uh huh."

Taako hasn't been able to look away from the crowd since Kravitz first stopped him, and he's still staring at them now with blank trepidation. He used to not care. When did that stop, why is this different? He's always been so good with faking his way through things, but this feels too heavy, too important to fake.

Kravitz, sensing his distraction, tugs on one of the loose wisps of hair around his face. "At the very least, we look pretty good."

Shaking his head gently so as not to disturb his up-do, Taako looks back at Kravitz finally. "Darling, we look  _amazing_."

With that, Taako's ears droop, and he seems to get back enough of his composure to pour it into the charm he's always stuck to. He takes Kravitz's arm and leans into him flirtatiously, buying time with Kravitz's laugh until Lup returns and commandeers the attention.

"Showtime, nerdlords," she says with a wink and a wave. Sparks fly out of her fingertips briefly and she's thrumming with an infectious energy that bolsters Taako enough to drag Kravitz onstage before either of them can back out.

For a second, he regrets the heels. When Kravitz parts from him to head for his piano, Taako feels unsteady, adrift. Familiar faces out in the crowd, particularly Lup's forcing her way back to the front, are a little fortifying, but too far to make too much of a difference. There's an ocean between him and everyone he knows, dark and deep with no way of crossing, and he feels like he's about to go under when Kravitz plays a note.

The middle C makes him turn, startled and then grateful above all else. It must show on his face because Kravitz smiles encouragingly and plays the note again for Taako to tune to. There's no adjustments necessary when he plays along, the sound clear and resonant, and Taako smiles. He's got this. A wink in Kravitz's direction and he turns to the hushed audience.

When Taako scales [that first riff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW-SxgZViuk), the world changes. The lights dim, the material sphere shrinks, until the only thing that is happening anywhere in any universe is him and Kravitz and the sound between them. It's spellbinding and rapturous, a vignette focus on a stage with two people seeing in a new light someone they've seen hundreds of times over.

Ten years ago, there was a late night of research that fell into a morning of waking up on top of each other in a pile of red, groggy but still warm. Five before that, a set of baking lessons and too-sugary cakes that everyone pretended to enjoy while they giggled from the counter. A year spent together fixing the remains of a long gone society's intricate library system, an afternoon of scaling an abandoned cathedral just to see the view, that time Kravitz tried to keep a secret pet and the unspoken devastation when the cat finally died. A bottle of wine here and there. Some old records. Flirting and teasing and arguing and quiet understanding. An entire life. So much time.

All of it condensed in a few minutes, all of it unspoken. Lifetimes of what has just been defined for the first time as the love it has always been.

And as the last few notes dissipate like smoke into the air, Taako takes a deep breath. The air tastes different. Sweeter. He runs over and grabs Kravitz's hand, pulling him up to the front so they can bow over and over to the adoring applause. He feels Kravitz lift their joined hands once more, only this time to press a kiss to the back of Taako's. It startles a laugh out of him, genuine and loud, until he takes another breath, and this time it sticks.

This time it sticks, to the inside of his lungs, to the few creases by his eyes, and it feels like he's devoured some unnamed emotion whole—like he's swallowed the sun if the sun were made of orange juice and sea glass and long sleeves in its own kind of incandescent fusion.

Like vinyl crackles and peonies and bad jokes and—

"Hang on."

With long purposeful strides Taako dashes to the piano and grabs their sheet music, sharp quarter notes on Kravitz's lines, mumbled scribbles where Taako would wing it, and throws it down on the podium. The light from the cave flashes, but only once, incredibly bright, and the memory of the performance doesn't even disappear before it is projected back in defining quality.

Taako and Kravitz are already gone.

They're halfway up the hill before anyone notices their disappearance, lost in the shadows of the pavilion's back as they slide, laughing, up the wet grass. Taako pauses to pull off his shoes and leans on Kravitz for balance, who just smiles so fondly Taako thinks his own heart might stop. They crest the first hill, and the next, only to fall down just on the other side where the dew is illuminated by the huge crescent moon above. Taako doesn't even try to complain about grass stains or the awkward cold wet at the small of his back as he lets his hair devolve under him. He can't stop smiling long enough to say much of anything.

"You, uh?" Kravitz sits up and laughs, running a hand through his hair. His awkwardness is irredeemably charming and Taako feels like his smile is so wide it must be echoing through the entire quiet night.

Taako levers himself up too, still leaning back on his hands. He wants to snark, wants to smirk and quip and all those fun biting verbs, but all he can do is hum.

"Mhm."

"I?"

Taako smiles again and sits up fully.

"Mhm."

And Taako leans in, and it's... the most perfect culmination. It's a filled notebook, a warm breeze, a cracked egg sliding into an empty bowl, a glass of wine filled exactly to the top, the solid press of a hand sinking into a brand new mattress. It's perfectly indescribable, as much as Taako tries.

"You're like—" Taako pulls back to say, "Gods, kissing you is— _starlight_ and _holding hands_."

Kravitz laughs, beautifully free, and his other hand brushes over Taako's cheek so gently it almost hurts. "Starlight, huh?"

And  _ugh_ , Taako feels himself blushing, but he can't help it. Pulling up bits of grass with one hand he shoves at Kravitz with the other and tells him to go fuck himself. All Kravitz does in retaliation, though, is grab that hand and hold it to his chest even as he presses closer.

"Well you're like sunshine," he says. "And, and green apple and summer scarves and jazz." His smile has gone from teasing to soft and somewhat incredulous at the fact that he's getting to say these things out loud to the one person who deserves to hear them.

So Taako raises an eyebrow and Kravitz nods in a way both bashful and certain that says, _Well, yeah_. So Taako's smile grows soft and Kravitz's grows wide. So Taako asks and Kravitz replies.

"Jazz?"

"Jazz."

Taako lies back and pulls Kravitz down with him, and it  _is_ jazz: changing, fusing, and, of course, passionate. It's new every second. It's so familiar.

**Author's Note:**

> their song is "[generique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW-SxgZViuk)" by miles davis, with poetic license. i like this version (tho it's incomplete) of him playing to the film _ascenseur por l'echafaud_ , or, _elevator to the gallows_ (the entire score is him improvising to the film, it's gorgeous). title is a paraphrased miles davis quote.
> 
> the following is an abridged 1am realization from twitter, which gave birth to this:
> 
> "i was trying to fall asleep but then i started thinking abt taako & kravitz in tazswap and was trying to figure out the conservatory and what instruments they'd play and my brain immediately shouted MILES DAVIS ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS and i CANNOT think about ANYTHING else 
> 
> "i think tazswap taako & kravitz are immediately flirty, it's who they are, but i think they're polarized to start so it's different. lup & barry were "oh i'm in love with this person i'm close to" and i think taako & krav would be "oh i'm in love with this person i flirt with" yea? it's about seeing a new side, which i think the song shows juxtaposing uncharacteristically serious tone/mood with a not as serious (on the surface) relationship. it's a change in terminology, a relabeling of a casual feeling into a serious one as opposed to one serious feeling into another, and idk it was a spontaneous dumb thing but i think elevator to the gallows matches that
> 
> "also like. elevators. death thing. funny."
> 
> tazswap, of course, is the child of [trainwreckgenerator](http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/tagged/tazswap) (who draws the most perfect kravitz holy shit) ([AND DREW SOME KICKASS Tazswap Official™ ART FOR THIS](http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/post/165246164364/)) and this in particular now comes with supplementary vingettes! just click "next work" below
> 
> if you liked this or any of my other fics, maybe consider [buying me a coffee](http://ko-fi.com/mildlydiscouraging)?
> 
> tumblr @[moonfullofstars](http://moonfullofstars.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [those afternoons and evenings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12075888) by [mildlydiscouraging](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging)




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